Oops

We forgot to pack some kids books in cabin luggage. Wish us luck...

Sixth level of hell? (at least)

It all started so innocently - a list of class members was sent home, "for Valentine's Day cards". So on Tuesday, which was a snow day (although there was no snow, so maybe it was a "its February and we need a break day"), I took the boys to the mall to find Valentines Day cards. I expected to be able to sail into Hallmark and find a box full. We didn't, but we found doilies and heart stickers, and I knew we had craft paper, so ok, we'll make the cards.
My mistake, and I hope other parents in the US are reading this, so they can learn the easy way -
I thought it would be nice for my son to write in Every.Single. Card. To blah, from blah, Happy Valentine's Day.
Initially it was 11 cards for the class mates, then there was a new class member, then we remembered the teacher, the teachers assistant, the babysitter, and a friend from church whose mum warned us had a card, and finally, the bus driver (who apparently gives out candy...) which is, count it - about 17 - then he also does one for me - 18...
So it turns into a marathon session, over and over again, of encouraging small tired boy who couldn't care less, to write in Every. Single. Card. He wanted to do the cards, he just (by about the 5th card) didn't want to write in Every. Single. Card...
Eventually, we gave him a chocolate coin after every session, and talked hard about doing our best out of respect for our class mates, and how much fun the class party will be, and answered difficult questions about just what Valentine's Day is, and the cracker question - what the apostrophe was, and did we really need it (which just made me stressed, because it was a grammatical necessity, but do you want to try and explain that to a five year old who is also concentrating on writing neatly in 18 cards?!)
The take home from all that - Get a stamp of "Happy Valentines Day", or write it yourself. Leave the child the easy bit of To blah, From blah. Do not, under any circumstances, get enthusiastic and expect that he can write 18 cards in 4 nights.

Peeps

This was a very cultural experience - in that, everyone knew what she was talking about, and I didn't, and I asked that fatal question, thinking that I had misheard...
I thought they were kitchen sponges cut into bunny shapes. Turns out they're marshmallows covered in sugar cut into bunny shapes. I am bringing these to Australia, I'm not game to try them on my own!

Travelling

I've been a bit absent, because we are getting ready to go back to Australia for two weeks... And just to make life more interesting, we sent the computer away for repairs - our lovely new computer started turning off suddenly. And now, I'm really irritated because for some reason, I can't upload photos (on hubby's work computer, which isn't running Chrome, which is what Google likes), and what good is it all without photos?!
As I type, it is about 48 hours before we leave, and we're not packed, which is ok for a domestic trip, but I'm feeling a touch underprepared for an international flight with two small children, one of whom has just had a nasty fever for two days, but...
I will continue to try to put up something, I have draft posts written, but I'm not sure it will happen before we get to Australia, and I'm not even sure it will happen there. I'll have to keep a 'ghost' blog off line, just to keep away the frustration.
I guess we'll all have a holiday together eh?!

Ice!

The one night we should have left our windscreen wipers up so they didn't get frozen to the windscreen... we didn't even realize there was sleet coming (no TV, no radio...). The neighbor just ran his car for 20 mins to melt the ice off easily. We didn't have that foresight, so spent 10 mins forcefully scraping our windows with the engine running.
It is certainly an experience, and I do wonder about the relative efficiencies of running a horse and cart (or sleigh) over winter...

Lincoln Memorial - at night!

Thanks to some very generous babysitting (overnight, with two boys anyone?!), we were able to attend the Winter Social for the office, in Washington. Now, we can cross a couple of things off our list:

• Go out in sub zero temps wearing a silk dress, stockings and a small bolero cardigan (solution - wear large snow jacket over the top when outside, and keep moving)
• Drive in Washington DC - down M Street, Georgetown, no less, while slightly lost, with only your phone to help
• Watch the sunset over the Potomac (remembering  NCIS lines such as "grab your gear, got a dead marine in the Potomac" - it is so cool, there is actually a river Potomac, it runs through Washington!!)
• And, on the way home, stop off and look at the Lincoln Memorial without all the people... (still in cold weather, so we didn't linger, but it was lovely)

Supermarkets

Following a long and involved discussion overheard between two colleagues recently, I have been musing on supermarkets in the USA. When we first came here, we were overwhelmed with the options.
Supermarkets near us (off the top of my head)

• Safeway
• Sam's Club (membership only warehouse)
• Target (same store as in Australia, only less clothing, and an entire supermarket down the back. Sort of like finding the Secret Garden really)
• Grauls
• Wegmans (I think that is how you spell it)
• Whole Foods
• The Fresh Market
• Trader Joes
• Giant
• Dutch Markets (run by Amish people, sort of like a huge continental supermarket, with seriously nice pastries)
• Shoppers

I had thought I would look up the internet and list all the others I found, but I just found a list that is so big, I can't be bothered. The point is, there are atleast 6 different 'large' grocery chains that own many other grocery stores under different names, grocery stores like Trader Joes that have about 400 stores across America, and then there are the local (er) grocery stores like Grauls, that owns about three around the place, or Wegmans, that is concentrated in Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and a couple of other nearby states.
Supermarkets in Australia:

• Coles
• Woolworths
• Aldi
• IGA
• Franklins (recently bought up by IGA?)

We arrived with our Australian mentality of all the supermarkets being pretty much the same, you just find the nearest "Colworths" and shop there. I had one friend explain to me that she knows certain items are always cheaper at Target, so when she is low on those items, she goes there and just buys those things. I thought it sounded a bit crazy at the time, but now we are going to Trader Joes for the nice icecream, Whole Foods for frozen yoghurt sticks in summer, and Grauls for pizza bases!

There is one last point to consider:
Population in Australia - 23 million (2013)
Population in America  - 316 million (2013)
Which makes the increase in amount of supermarkets sort of understandable.

Tomato based products

You all know tomato sauce is ketchup here? And that we pay extra to get ketchup made the Australian ('simple') way (ie, no high fructose corn syrup...).
But, there is more to it than this.
Tomato paste is tomato paste. so far, so good.
Pasta Sauce is...well, pasta sauce, but it is also tomato sauce! (I think) We buy bottles of pasta sauce in all sorts of flavours - I have a roasted garlic one in the cupboard, but we also recently tried one with vodka cheese flavour, and I'm pretty sure I remember some sort of oregano one.
However, you can buy tomato sauce, in a can, which looks to all intents and purposes like tomato puree in a can, EXCEPT... the tomato sauce has stock and other things added, where as the tomato puree is just pureed tomatoes.
So, say tomato sauce, and probably people are picturing the stuff you put on pasta.
It took possibly a month for us to work out the different between Tomato Puree, and Tomato Sauce. We kept on buying one, then the other, thinking no, it must be the same thing (life is very busy here, we get vague about cans very fast), then finally, we had one of each in the cupboard, and I had a spare 5 mins in front of the pantry to read the ingredients and work it out!
Small victory, but quite satisfying to work out the mystery of finding recipes that call for tomato sauce, in huge amounts.

Smithsonian Air and Space Annex

Well, what an awesome activity for a very cold day (about 23F with a bitter wind when we arrived). The Air and Space Museum has a second location near Dulles Airport (W side of Washington DC) for all the air craft and rockets they can't fit in their other location on the mall. One thing they couldn't fit was an entire Space Shuttle - the Discovery was retired here. Oh, and the entire Concord Jet (and, the Iroquois helicopter with its propellors folded for easy storage. How handy is that?).
I like these museums, because you can just wander and look, there isn't a whole heap to read, and it is more or less child proof - no super vigilance required around historic glass vases, for example.
I think I now understand the whole reason America got involved in space travel - the achievement levels of watching something take off - into space - that you built, with lots of fire and smoke must be so rewarding. The video of the Discovery taking off, strapped to the biggest fuel tank ever? Just poetic. Makes me want to do a victory dance, and I wasn't even there.
The downside of these museums - accidentally introducing your child to the imaginative ways that people do war on each other from aeroplanes, because invariably, 60% of the museum is war planes and helicopters and munitions to drop/launch.